Bob said...
"I'm not sure but when I went to school I thought original meant something
from _your_ mind not built upon someone else's work. "
But then even by this remark...the entire Dungeons and Dragons line is not
original, and would 'fail' under the online policy. D&D was based in part
on J.R.R. Tolkien's series. Look at the D&D Game..when they called them
Hobbits, and then in the next edition, switched them to halflins? I can't
quote the source, but I remember someone with TSR (at the time) even stated
the change was made to avoid any problems with Tolkien and the copyright
holders.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think TSR, or WotC for that matter are
doing anything illegal...I am just pointing out the flaw in your logic.
Roger said...
"There's nothing in that policy to indicate that Wizards believes people
who follow the policy are stealing from them. I've been following this issue
since the Morpheus netbooks controversy first arose in 1994, and I have to
say it's a complete shock to me that a Wizards executive believes online,
not-for-profit, derivative work is illegal. It's a throwback to the bad old
days when TSR seemed determined to antagonize its customers."
Of course, then TSR's stance at the time, the early days of the 'Net was to
hound down any site with D&D material. That is what caused the T$R scare,
and started giving the company a bad reputation. WotC has done an excellent
job of recovering, and in my opinion, they are a wonderful company who has
brought life to an excellent game.
However, T$R at the time, was the 'Man' of the time, and I always equate it
to Microsoft.
-------------
For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
